Always a Catch

I’m almost done with this GDEMU batch but if you got that ~3 weeks estimate and haven’t seen the PayPal request yet then I have some bad news: expect a week, perhaps two of delay. Something came up and I was unable to work during the weekends, which means there is a bunch of GDEMUs that haven’t been finished yet.

It also means I couldn’t start working on Rheas either – that too got pushed back by about 2 weeks from now. This is more or less when I’ll start taking orders for those. In itself it wouldn’t be too bad but by now I know better than to plan anything for December, especially shipping stuff. Trust me, you don’t want that.

Another batch of GDEMU PCBs is already on it’s way here but those are probably not going to be ready before January 2017 – I have to be realistic, there’s only so much time in a day.

Man, you should seriously consider outsourcing. It might simply mean having someone who helps you out, at least with the more tedious tasks, like orders and shipping. If I understand correctly, you’re interested in developing other project. The time you waste with redtape is time not invested on R&D. I would love to see some more products for older and not so older systems, from you. You’re clearly a technical talented guy, you should concentrate on what you do best and delegate other tasks. In the long run, I’m sure it’d even translate on more profit, given the added sales volume.

Anyway, that’s just me rambling. Going back to the waiting game now.
Thanks for the update.

I don’t mind waiting, just want to wait on a list so I don’t have to check it daily for another year. Truly blessed to get the Saturn solution but now still hoping that the planets align for the Dreamcast.

Christmas in October!
Recieved my GDEMU a few days ago and it runs like a Deere. It’s a solid built piece of tech for a reasonable price. Thanks a lot gdemu, for reviving my DC!
For all the guys still waiting: Hold on, you won’t regret it. I wish you luck.

Just received mine today and LOVE IT! While I had the system open, I replaced the battery with a coin slot version, took off the 12v resistor to eliminate that heat source (Only GD-Rom uses that power), and created an interior panel (electrical tape + cardstock) to funnel air away from the power supply like it would on a standard unit with the GD-Rom intact. 3+ hours of constant running and the system is still cool as can be and runs great! Love having all my fighting and arcade games in one place! Thanks so much for such an amazing product!

It’s one of the options, and in my opinion the best as it completely eliminates the 12v power. So yes, it does take away the ability to use the GD-Rom anymore. I knew my V1 was going to be committed to the GDEMU, so I had no issue with doing the mod.

The method of adding a resistor may have issues in the future, because I’ve seen the math all over the place. 300 ohm 1/2 watt appears to be the consensus though. From what people are saying though, it does work and keeps your original power supply intact if you replace the GD-Rom in the future.

The final option being to completely change out the power supply (Pico Mod), which involves even more work and I wouldn’t recommend it for someone unfamiliar with the electronics. And I think that setup just looks plain ugly, I like my systems to look as stock as possible.

You do realise it’s not exactly a must have, to remove the 12v or add a 300ohm resistor, as the whole heat issue is very debatable. Personally, I have been running/testing the ODE for over a year and half, often enough with and without (stock) PSU mods and there has been no detrimental effect to the ODE nor the DC hardware in that time.

I wouldn’t say the additional heat issue is debatable, it’s been proven via several sources (Assembler Games, Reddit DC, multiple DC Mod scenes). GDEMU himself posted a make-shift solution a while back (Drill ventilation holes into the plastic panel on the power supply’s side). A digital thermometer shows a proven difference in heat during game-play. The amount/lasting effect is the debatable part. I’d rather be safe than sorry. No reason to expose the console to additional wear and tear if you don’t have to. Whether it’s 5 or 20 degrees extra, it’s still extra stress on the system and can lead to potential failures.

i have test the dc with gdemu 12v removed and not removed and 12 back with stock gdrom. the console is more heated with gdemu even if 12v is removed. i found my console to be more cooled with stock gdrom. so 2 solutions if anybody is woried. 1: extra fan with gdemu there is a space for one fan. 2 a picopsu

First of, amazing mods zexmaix! Looks great!! How did you manage the wireless controllers?

I went with the resistor (300 ohm 10W!) and fan mods.
Without any mods, my PSU was topping 14.5 Volts. Once I installed the resistor, I could bring it back to GD-Rom days (around 13.5 during gameplay).
The resistor is pretty robust and whatever heat is generating, gets redirected to the massive heat sink base of the dreamcast via use of thermal paste.

First of, amazing work on your mods zexmaix! How did you manage to create the 2 wireless controllers?

I went with the resistor (300 ohm 10W!) and fan mods.
Without any mods, my PSU was topping 14.5 Volts. Once I installed the resistor, I could bring it back to GD-Rom days (around 13.5 during gameplay).
The resistor is pretty robust and whatever heat it generates, it gets redirected to the massive heat sink base of the Dreamcast via use of thermal paste.

I got mine yesterday and have been trying to get it working for half a day on two different DCs. It always tells me to insert a game disc. Both with and without GDmenu. I put named the files correctly put them in seperate folders… the only other thing I can think of is the card has to be in a format other than NTFS?

I received my gdemu and everything is running great but I do have one little question. I’m using a Lexar 95mbps 256gb sd card with it and I have about 151 games on it. The card itself is formatted as fat 32 but I don’t remember the cluster size. On average it takes about 25-30 seconds to boot into the gdemu menu. I don’t have the firmware saved on the root of the sd card and I grabbed the latest gdemu files off here about two weeks ago. My GDEMU just came in about two weeks ago. Is there anything I can do to shed some seconds off the boot time or is that normal for the amount of games on the card? I just wondered if there was an ini command to help with that or maybe some way to cache the game directory so it doesn’t have to load each time it boots up. Not a biggie. I’m usually not jumping around from game to game very often but I do have new buttons for my arcade stick coming and I’ll want to break it in on a fighting game marathon.

What about Phoebe? Am I one of those unlucky owners of a Saturn that is compatible only with Phoebe (I am saying this because I keep on seeing that Rhea is the most asked for ODE for Saturn) ? I saw that we are speaking about GDEMU and Rhea, but nobody asks anything about Phoebe..

Aaaa, ok. Well this makes sense :). You need to somehow please everyone. It’s just strange to see that there are more owners of old Saturn versions than newer (based on the fact that people are asking for Rheas more than Phoebes).